TV Girl… If you ask us, more band photos should be like this

Interview: TV Girl

Published on July 3rd, 2013 | Jonny Abrams

TV Girl issued last year’s The Wild, The Innocent, The TV Shuffle as a mixtape, but Rocksucker saw fit to brazenly flaunt this categorisation by including it in our Top 100 Albums of 2012.

It charted at number 28, making it even better than a whopping 72 good albums to have also come out last year, as well as goodness knows how many rubbish ones. Thousands, probably.

We said of The Wild, The Innocent, The TV Shuffle: “this full-length debut from San Diego duo Brad Petering and Trung Ngo is brimming with joyous applications of early ’60s songwriting to colourful hip-hop production. An addictive summer soundtrack with lashings of good humour and bucketloads of melody.” And now…

…yes, now, they’ve just ‘dropped’ an utterly beaming new EP entitled Lonely Women, reviewed glowingly in this recent singles round-up. (It would be unseemly to quote ourselves more than once in the space of a single intro, so just click on the damn link and scroll down.)

Anyway, here’s that interview we promised, Brad once again on answering duties after his strong showing in our previous exchange. First, though, get an earful of the new EP’s lead track “She Smokes in Bed”…

Congratulations upon entering into your second Rocksucker interview; not many bands have made it this far. (Well, a few have.) Do you smoke in bed, and if so has it ever come close to ending in disaster?

Hello and thank you. We plan on being the first band to get not four, but five Rocksucker interviews. Well on our way. As far as smoking in bed, I don’t do it or condone it. The best part about smoking is having an excuse to stand outside and do nothing.

Are Laura and Melanie real people, and if so what do they think of their respective odes?

Laura is about a real person. One of my favorite songwriters of all time, Laura Nyro. If anyone wants a deeper insight into this song and my Nyro fandom check out the annotated lyrics to “Laura” over at Rap Genius. She’s dead now and ghosts don’t have strong opinions about the comings and goings of small time indie bands (I’m generalizing here).

Melanie is a trickier situation. It was sort of inspired by an actual person, but not someone I knew exactly. Someone who ran in sort of similar circles that I observed from afar. But her name’s not Melanie and she’s really not a bad person. The negative characterization of “Melanie” is based more on my own unfair perception fueled by jilted lust than any character flaws in any real people. So no. But also yes. Kind of.

Is there a full-length follow-up to The Wild, The Innocent, The TV Shuffle in the offing? If so, what can you tell us about it at this stage? Would it be presented as an album or a mixtape, and do you expect the tracks from the new EP to feature on it?

A full-length debut is something every band needs to get to eventually I suppose. We’re currently in the process of writing it. Have about forty tracks in various states of quality and completion. Need to narrow those down to ten to twelve songs. Could take a while. No songs from the EP will be on it. Lonely Women is a stand-alone project and a work of singular inspiration and genius. That’s what they tell me at least.

How is the songwriting divided between yourself and Trung? Does anyone else contribute to the recording process?

We both write. I’m more prolific, but a lot of the ones I write are no good. Our live drummer Jason Wyman has been invaluable during the recording process. Him and I produce most of the TV Girl stuff together. We also take on outside jobs. Recently we produced and mixed the new Coma Cinema album.

What is your live setup? Any plans to come to the UK at any point?

We enlisted two close friends and collaborators to make our live show more of a “band” experience. Drums and the like. No plans to come over the UK. Apparently it’s very expensive to do so! I figure that we need to be at least 130% bigger rock stars to make it financially viable. Let’s hope we get there soon!

What music from 2013 have you been enjoying and/or is there anything yet to come out that you’re particularly looking forward to?

Some new projects I’ve been listening to include Wise Blood, Colleen Green, Emily Reo, Elvis Depressedly, Ricky Eat Acid. Sometimes I open my window and listen to the sound of helicopters landing on top of the hospital next door.

TV Girl, thank you.

TV Girl’s new EP Lonely Women is out now.

You can buy the Lonely Women EP on iTunes and on Amazon.

Artists: TV Girl

About the Author

Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.